"Trump’s actions to restrict the free press during his presidential campaign have sent a worrying signal about his intentions in the presidency," RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire said. "The press must be able to carry out its work without fear of reprisal from a hostile White House."
During the campaign, Trump threatened to sue newspapers, especially the New York Times, and to change libel laws to make lawsuits against the media easier to win.
Trump also banned the Washington Post and several other media outlets from his campaign events.
Unlike past US presidential candidates, Trump disparaged the mainstream corporate media for their liberal, pro-Democratic Party and pro-Clinton bias and acting as an arm of the Clinton campaign.
At one point, Trump urged people to stop reading US newspapers, stop watching US television newscasts and rely on multiple news sources available on internet. A significant number of Americans has switched to obtaining news from alternative media sources.
Some surveys have shown that Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents in US newsrooms outnumber their Republican counterparts by margins as high as 20-1.
